The Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem (IAS) at the Hebrew University has been accepted to a prestigious consortium of the world's leading advanced academic institutes.

Membership for the Hebrew University's IAS was voted by the consortium's existing members – considered the Ivy League of advanced institutes. These include the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford; Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard; the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study; and Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin Institute for Advanced Study at Berlin. The Hebrew University is the tenth member to join the consortium.

The IAS in Jerusalem was accepted for its unique approach in hosting collaborative research groups and its academic achievements. It hopes that membership will open doors to further academic exchange and collaborative projects.

''We are looking forward to sharing experiences with these distinguished institutes for the benefit of all,” said director of the IAS at the Hebrew University, Prof. Eliezer Rabinovici. “Science should move forward by the tradition of openness and sharing and not by the ill winds of exclusion. Membership status in the SIAS consortium is a testament to the high caliber, innovative and collaborative research Israel engages in.''

The IAS is the only one of its kind in the Middle East and was the fifth in the world to be established in 1975 – the first one being at Princeton. Twelve Nobel Laureates are associated with the Institute in the fields of chemistry, physics, medicine and economics.

An independent institution based at the Hebrew University at Givat Ram, the IAS is committed to advanced research and promoting excellence in wide-ranging scientific areas and scholastic fields by facilitating intense intellectual exchange between scholars of diverse experience and knowledge to produce innovative thinking and groundbreaking research. As distinct from universities, scholars come for a year to work on their research with eight colleagues - four from Israel and four from abroad. The Institute also sponsors workshops and conferences, as well as an advanced school for educating the next generation of students.